Meditations on a Cogen (No. 16) • Thursday, February 10, 2022

During the 2021-22 school year, I’m having weekly co-generative dialogues (or cogens) with my students. In an effort to help me process these talks and document progress, I summarize and write reflections after each cogen. This is the 16th post in the series.

Some opening reflections
Today’s cogen includes 8 students. Six are from my Regents-bound classes (the current cohort) and two are cogen alumni that just keep coming back week after week. I refuse to turn them away. I remind of a couple of them today during class, but most arrive on completely their own. This is encouraging.

We lift off with two quick talking points: today’s exam and DeltaMath Day from last week. The exam had mixed reviews. A couple of students mention that it was harder than they thought it would be, while others say it was just right. Other comments highlight specific problems, but there’s nothing noteworthy to hitch our idea train to. Our first DeltaMath Day was on Friday, a day I allowed students to work on their DeltaMath during class. Looking back, I thought we might have spent too much time discussing the opening problem (the “Do Now”) before transitioning to DeltaMath, but the cogen doesn’t think so. The students say it was enough time. In the end, I think DeltaMath Day helped because 2 of my 3 classes achieved their DeltaMath goal this week. Choice quizzes all around!

Math Journal Problems
Back in December, I assigned my math journal assignment. It’s a metacognitive writing task that asks students to choose a problem and explore their thinking around it. I’ve done it for years and am assigning it twice this year. It’s been largely unedited for a long time, but my first cohort of cogen students helped me heavily revise it. After submission of the first one, the second cohort offered several great suggestions to improve the assignment for the second go-around. One of their recommendations was to allow the cogen to choose which problems are featured in the next journal. This is a goal for today.

I provide this context (which involves me talking a lot — a mistake) and then hand the students 10 problems. I curated them based on how and what we have been learning. I want the cogen to choose five of the problems. These five will be the options for the class; each student will select one to write about in their journal. Almost all of the 10 problems we’ve either discussed in class or have been on exams (that was also based on the cogen’s feedback). Four of them include student work. As the students look over the problems, I find something to do away from the table. I want to give them time to think without me.

When I return, they pretty much have their five. This takes surprisingly less time than I thought it would. After they lock in their selections, we dabble here and there (one student voiced the lone Open Middle problem I included looked “scary”), but don’t spend enough time discussing why the students chose the problems they did — or at least why they eliminated some and not others. Looking back, this was a mistake on my end. Getting into their heads would have been valuable. What are the similarities of the five problems they chose? Why were the students drawn to them? What didn’t they like about the other five problems?

We could have spent all of our time today responding to these types of questions; it would have afforded us a rich discussion and given me some lovely insights into the mathematical minds of my students. Inquiring further into their mathematical leanings would have revealed how their thinking has been shaped by our class and even opened the door to activities like problem posing. Alas, despite being pressed for time, I feel that I missed an opportunity.

Co-designing a board game
We’re about halfway through today’s session when I ask the squad about our lesson. Last week we brainstormed and this week I wanted to lock in our decision so we can begin coplanning. Playing a board game with the class drew attention last week and it doesn’t take long before we decide to throw our collective weight behind it. We run with the idea.

We discuss details. Will the game run asynchronously in groups or as a whole class? How will players move on the board? What will the board look like? What special spaces will there be? These are fun questions to explore, but it’s clear that there is a lot of work to be done.

We flip-flop a few times, but tentatively decide to run to the game synchronously as a whole class. We conclude that, on their turn, players will pick up a Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 card. Each card will have a math problem on it and also specify how many spaces they will move if answered correctly (a Level 1 problem will move less than a Level 3 problem, for example). We also consider having solutions on a table in the middle of the room so students/players can check their answers.

We depart with action steps. I commit to prep the problems and the students agree to design a gameboard. When we reconvene next week, we will merge our ideas and start finalizing the game. We plan on playing Friday, March 4. This will allow us to use the Thursday, March 3 cogen to create the gameboard(s) and make final preparations for the game.

Cogens = student empowerment
A recent Friday Letter from a student at today’s cogen reminded me that while cogens serve a definitive purpose of improving the classroom, that purpose comes with an important corollary: student empowerment. In his letter, he underscored the cogen’s role in helping him find his voice, step out of his comfort zone, and be a student leader. On Mondays, he’s part of the two-student team that announces the DeltaMath percentages and goals for the week in front of the whole class. It’s a role he inherited when he became a member of the cogen. It’s a simple job, but one that, when coupled with our weekly meetings, has boosted his confidence a lot. (Ironically, he is also a member of the Student Voice in Curriculum (SViC) initiative through the superintendent’s office, which is similar in spirit to our cogen.)

I’m glad that our cogen has reinforced his self-pride while also making him feel that he is an asset to our classroom, which he is. Though he is grateful to our cogen for how it has contributed to personal growth, his belief in and dedication to the cogen are equally outstanding. Without students like him, the space literally wouldn’t exist. The final words of his letter capture his allegiance to the cogen and hit home with me. They make my week.

“I’m really looking forward to continuing to work and helping in the cogen — especially the activity we’re planning. Like, I really think it has great potential and can be really, really fun if executed well, so I gotta start doing some board game research.”


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Students as Coteachers

In For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…, my man Chris Emdin writes:

Coteaching is a natural outgrowth of the educational cypher. Ideally, coteaching is implemented in the classroom after a cycle of cogen sessions has taken place with a group of students….Cogen participants are more amenable to putting themselves out on a limb fot the sake of further improving classroom instruction. (p. 93)

I have more or less adopted Emdin’s model for cogenerative dialogues these last two years. In doing so, coteaching with students has always been on my mind. It’s a natural progression for students to go from discussing and critiquing the class to taking the helm and being the change they wish to see. Positioning myself as a coteacher alongside my students has been a primary goal for my cogens since I started them. I achieved that goal for the first time this week.

I played around with the idea last year during remote learning, but I think I planted the seed a couple of months ago with this year’s first cohort of cogen students. I was preparing one of my hallmark assignments and they helped me revise it. It was an interesting and worthwhile venture, but I noticed afterward that the students had merely helped me plan the assignment — I didn’t get out of the way and let them enact it. Don’t get me wrong, their planning was new and critical in the development of the cogen’s work. But it would have been better if, instead of me, the students rolled out the assignment to the class. They knew the assignment well and could speak to it, but I gave them no airtime to present it to the class. Noticing this, I was encouraged to go a step further with the next cohort of students: design a lesson with them and coteach it.

When I approached the students about the idea of coteaching, they were on board. As Emdin suggests, I think their willingness to boldly engage in coteaching was a direct consequence of their involvement in the cogen and how it has positioned them as change agents. Having never cotaught with students before and wanting to privilege their ideas, I encouraged them to decide the topic and format of the lesson.

What did they choose? Math Bingo.

A game! I was excited. So were they. We spent the next few cogen sessions planning it out. I showed them a Bingo template and sample problems. We discussed flow and logistics and consulted on timing. I was nervous, but we were ready.

The game was originally planned for one day, but ended up needing two. We finished it this week. Five cogen students cotaught my three Regents classes. Overall, it went smoothly. My coteachers led the class through the game — they floated to assist students, called on students to respond, and kept everything organized. I stayed mostly in the background, anchoring myself to some of my most struggling students. I would occasionally nod to my coteachers indicating that I thought it was time to move on to the next problem. Without even knowing it, I guess you can say we adopted the “One teach, one assist” coteaching model. We played off each other well.

Two cogens (standing near Smartboard) students coteaching in period 3.

On the exit ticket, there was plenty of positive feedback. When asked about one aspect of the activity they liked, students wrote things such as, “It was something to have fun with and learn at the same time,” “We worked together,” and “It was fun competing with one another.” The constructive feedback came in the form of things like, “Maybe try and fit more problems,” “It felt kind of slow,” and “Give us more time for the problems.”

My cogen met two days after the lesson and we spent the majority of our time reflecting on how the lesson went. I asked my coteachers to attend, if they were able (they had already selected their replacements for the cogen). Three of my five coteachers joined us.

We agreed that Bingo was a nice escape from what we usually do — the break from the norm was appreciated by all. The students liked the diversity of the problems too; they got to review many key ideas from the current unit in a game format. I heralded the time I spent helping weaker students as a major achievement of the lesson; having coteachers freed me up to work closely with those who needed me most.

While there was copious amounts of positive energy about the lesson, we knew it could be improved. To help with timing, which was highlighted on the exit tickets, the cogen agreed that we should have paid more attention to the details of the game (some problems needed less time than others, for example, and we didn’t have rewards for winners). We also admitted that I should have helped my coteachers gain a deeper understanding of the problems before we played. This would have equipped the coteachers to better help their peers during the game. It would have also helped with pacing. In the end, when I asked if they would want to play again, the cogen’s answer was unanimous and enthusiastic: YES!

In the days leading up to the lesson, I went back and reread the “Coteaching” chapter in White Folks, from which the above quote was taken. Despite a year and a half of cogening, relinquishing my status and upending my classroom’s power dynamic would be hard. I needed to steal some of Emdin’s confidence. Interestingly, when I first read the chapter many years ago, it felt unnatural and impractical. The idea of coteaching with students was ambitious, but too much so. Looking back now, I simply wasn’t ready. This week, I found myself reading it with a fine-tooth comb. I pocketed advice and identified personal weaknesses that might prevent me from embodying my new role as coteacher. It couldn’t have been more useful.

All my previous cogens and my rereading must have worked because during the lesson I felt something shift and click into place. It was magical. Coteaching with my students felt organic and necessary. It felt like a practice that should have been happening all along.



bp

Students as coteachers

In For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…, my man Chris Emdin writes:

Coteaching is a natural outgrowth of the educational cypher. Ideally, coteaching is implemented in the classroom after a cycle of cogen sessions has taken place with a group of students….Cogen participants are more amenable to putting themselves out on a limb fot the sake of further improving classroom instruction. (p. 93)

I have more or less adopted Emdin’s model for cogenerative dialogues these last two years. In doing so, coteaching with students has always been on my mind. It’s a natural progression for students to go from discussing and critiquing the class to taking the helm and being the change they wish to see. Positioning myself as a coteacher alongside my students has been a primary goal for my cogens since I started them. I achieved that goal for the first time this week.

I played around with the idea last year during remote learning, but I think I planted the seed a couple of months ago with this year’s first cohort of cogen students. I was preparing one of my hallmark assignments and they helped me revise it. It was an interesting and worthwhile venture, but I noticed afterward that the students had merely helped me plan the assignment — I didn’t get out of the way and let them enact it. Don’t get me wrong, their planning was new and critical in the development of the cogen’s work. But it would have been better if, instead of me, the students rolled out the assignment to the class. They knew the assignment well and could speak to it, but I gave them no airtime to present it to the class. Noticing this, I was encouraged to go a step further with the next cohort of students: design a lesson with them and coteach it.

When I approached the students about the idea of coteaching, they were on board. As Emdin suggests, I think their willingness to boldly engage in coteaching was a direct consequence of their involvement in the cogen and how it has positioned them as change agents. Having never cotaught with students before and wanting to privilege their ideas, I encouraged them to decide the topic and format of the lesson.

What did they choose? Math Bingo.

A game! I was excited. So were they. We spent the next few cogen sessions planning it out. I showed them a Bingo template and sample problems. We discussed flow and logistics and consulted on timing. I was nervous, but we were ready.

The game was originally planned for one day, but ended up needing two. We finished it this week. Five cogen students cotaught my three Regents classes. Overall, it went smoothly. My coteachers led the class through the game — they floated to assist students, called on students to respond, and kept everything organized. I stayed mostly in the background, anchoring myself to some of my most struggling students. I would occasionally nod to my coteachers indicating that I thought it was time to move on to the next problem. Without even knowing it, I guess you can say we adopted the “One teach, one assist” coteaching model. We played off each other well.

Two cogens (standing near Smartboard) students coteaching in period 3.

On the exit ticket, there was plenty of positive feedback. When asked about one aspect of the activity they liked, students wrote things such as, “It was something to have fun with and learn at the same time,” “We worked together,” and “It was fun competing with one another.” The constructive feedback came in the form of things like, “Maybe try and fit more problems,” “It felt kind of slow,” and “Give us more time for the problems.”

My cogen met two days after the lesson and we spent the majority of our time reflecting on how the lesson went. I asked my coteachers to attend, if they were able (they had already selected their replacements for the cogen). Three of my five coteachers joined us.

We agreed that Bingo was a nice escape from what we usually do — the break from the norm was appreciated by all. The students liked the diversity of the problems too; they got to review many key ideas from the current unit in a game format. I heralded the time I spent helping weaker students as a major achievement of the lesson; having coteachers freed me up to work closely with those who needed me most.

While there was copious amounts of positive energy about the lesson, we knew it could be improved. To help with timing, which was highlighted on the exit tickets, the cogen agreed that we should have paid more attention to the details of the game (some problems needed less time than others, for example, and we didn’t have rewards for winners). We also admitted that I should have helped my coteachers gain a deeper understanding of the problems before we played. This would have equipped the coteachers to better help their peers during the game. It would have also helped with pacing. In the end, when I asked if they would want to play again, the cogen’s answer was unanimous and enthusiastic: YES!

In the days leading up to the lesson, I went back and reread the “Coteaching” chapter in White Folks, from which the above quote was taken. Despite a year and a half of cogening, relinquishing my status and upending my classroom’s power dynamic would be hard. I needed to steal some of Emdin’s confidence. Interestingly, when I first read the chapter many years ago, it felt unnatural and impractical. The idea of coteaching with students was ambitious, but too much so. Looking back now, I simply wasn’t ready. This week, I found myself reading it with a fine-tooth comb. I pocketed advice and identified personal weaknesses that might prevent me from embodying my new role as coteacher. It couldn’t have been more useful.

All my previous cogens and my rereading must have worked because during the lesson I felt something shift and click into place. It was magical. Coteaching with my students felt organic and necessary. It felt like a practice that should have been happening all along.



bp

Meditations on a Cogen (No. 15) • Thursday, February 3, 2022

During the 2021-22 school year, I’m having weekly co-generative dialogues (or cogens) with my students. In an effort to help me process these talks and document progress, I summarize and write reflections after each cogen. This is the 15th post in the series.

A good problem
It is 2:45pm and I sit down around the table to realize that this is the largest cogen of the year. I have nine students around me as we start. This included three cogen “graduates” who came back for another round (two of them are now regulars). I successfully filled the empty seat from period 1, but the invited student brought their friend with them. An added bonus! I now have three students from period 1 and two from periods 5 and 9.

I am flattered and excited about the turnout. Kids actually want to be here! Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise during 15th cogen of the year, but it does. I try not to take their time for granted.

As we start, I quickly realize that with such a large group, I have another problem on my hands: too many voices. Throughout the year, worried that I wouldn’t have enough students, I have been welcoming all students — even those whose six-week commitment has passed or those who wonder into the room on a limb. But now, after today, I’m concerned about my open door policy. There are several new and reserved students in the cogen and I fear that their voices might get lost in the crowd or inadvertently silenced by more established members. The intimacy and exclusivity of the cogen is precisely why it works. Do I politely ask older members to step aside to make room for their successors? Do I turn away non-regulars who stumble upon us? Or do I remain inclusive and find a way to balance it all? This is a good problem to have.

Reflections on Bingo
The primary goal today is to debrief the Bingo lesson that I cotaught with five of the cogen students this week. It was a big deal for me and to the evolution of my cogen. We have reached the next phase.

Coteaching with the students was so rich and informative that I had to write a separate blog post about it. In addition to detailing how the lesson went, the post also captures the cogen reflections from today.

Next cogen project
After witnessing their predecessors coteach the class, I turned to the current cogen members. What lesson do they want to teach? Similar to the last group, I want them to choose. Drawing off the competitive vibes that resulted from the Bingo lesson, they mention games. Bingo was fun and the class enjoyed it. Why not try a different game?

The first student mentions one she played in her AP Spanish class that used Quizizz.com. In the game, students stood and moved forward and backward based on correct answers. It sounds fun. She provides details and we take note. A second student recommends Jeopardy. I’ve played plenty of Jeopardy-style games in the past, so I could help a lot with planning if we go that route. A third student recommends something interesting: a board game. It’s such an unexpected idea that it gains traction with the group. We imagine each of the four groups in the room playing the same game asynchronously. It’s an early favorite.

I ask the students to continue thinking about their lesson. We should commit to one and start planning it next week.

Updates and Next Steps
With about 5 minutes left, I provide the crew with some quick updates.

First, we had a quiz today in class and I ask the students if they noticed my improved timing. Acting on the cogen’s feedback from last week, I organized the lesson so that no one would have to stay after class in order to finish it. The kids noticed the improved timing on the quiz and appreciated it. I give my word to continue this.

Second, I remind them that tomorrow will be our first DeltaMath Day. We have been talking about this for a few weeks. I ask for quick suggestions on structure. Should we treat it like an independent workday? Should I set up a “help desk”? Should I simply float around the room? What would work best for them as students? They seem indifferent, but do like the help desk idea. We’ll see.

Lastly, we have an exam next week. Two cogens ago, we revised the class retake policy for exams so that anyone can take action to improve their grade (not just students who scored below 85%). We also realized that many students in the class may not know that a retake exam replaces their original grade. I vow to reannounce and place emphasis on both of these class policies next week before and after next week’s exam. I ask the students to hold me accountable for this and to also help spread the word.

After the students leave, I realize that I forgot to ask the new members about taking over the role of announcing our DeltaMath completion percentage. The cogen members have been doing this on Mondays and a routine is starting to form. I make note to follow up during class tomorrow.


bp